HE'ing 4, eek!

[sorky]

It's only just occurred to me that with 4 children, I'm going to be HE'ing all 4........at once.....

Has anyone else done this? (of course not Sorky it's akin to lunacy)

We don't autonomously HE btw, and I am on the whole pretty organised, but still......4.......what was I thinking?

All hints gratefully accepted!

Well, I have 3 and I don't often sit in a corner and gibber (well, just occasionally!) and we are fairly structured too. It's a case of sorting work into "can do on their own" and "need my help" and not trying to do 2 "need my help" at the same time.

It's also worth looking at which children could do the same thing and do it together, IYSWIM. We use "Story of the World" for history and DS2 and DD do that together but DD gets the easier questions as she is younger. DS1 and DS2 do Galore Park English together as well. They all do French and Spanish together as I have a small home ed group with 5 other children. They get 'homework' from that which sometimes we do together and sometimes comes into the "can do on their own" category, at least for DS1 and DS2.

Well I know of one mom who home educates 12 children............now that is what I call organised!

We only home educated three at once, and were autonomous but for me it was so much easier than organising them for school, home work etc.

Well, I only have 2, so I'm not best placed to comment really, but I would reiterate what Tinuviel says about working them together where possible, and even with two, I have a couple of strategies to stop me going insane!

One is to work them both on the same thing. So, whatever, DD1 (13) does, DD2(10) does too, just at a lower level, IYSWIM. It seems to work well and I've been really surprised at what DD2 can actually cope with.

One is to concentrate on something with one and not give a about what the other one is doing! Even if they only had fifteen minutes each with you, that's fifteeen minutes more of one to one than they'd be getting at school! So I will often work with one on something they are stuck on, and frankly, who cares what the other is doing! TV, DS, climbing trees, their time to have one to one with you will come later. And actually, I'm always amazed at how productive what they choose to do on their own actually is! You could work this just as well with 4.

The last one is to set them something to do, send them off to do it and tell them to come back for me to check it once it is all done. This might not work so well if they didn't have their own rooms, mind you. Also it depends on character a bit! DD2 invariably presents me with 12 pages of work half an hour later (and has the rest of the day completely free), whereas DD1 can still be languishing in her room at 5pm! Still, if I am busy with other stuff I have to do, it works well enough as a method.

I have to say, Musicposy, that if I sent my boys to their room to work, the only thing they would do would be to build Lego!! So I keep them at the table where I can regularly call DS2 back to planet Earth and can help DS1 when he gets stuck but doesn't like to say so!! DD would work anywhere, so maybe it's a gender thing.

Well mine are 8, 6, 3 & 1 yo and are all bloody different (pesky kids)

we follow the well-trained mind approach so they know what to do when (elder two) but the 3yo wants to learn to read and the baby just wants ME!!

Dh keeps saying it'll get easier, but that's tripe and he knows it! Thanks for your suggestions, I think I'll just keep pootling along and try not to worry.

No3 & 4 could be a cinch, you never know

We do quite a bit of Well Trained Mind - Story of the World (History Odyssey for DS1)and First Language Lessons. Galore Park are quite good too once they reach 7! And at least with 4, you get to use the books 4 times, so it works out cheaper!!

When DD was nursery age (she actually went to nursery), I used to use story tapes/CDs to keep her amused. They were really useful. The other thing I always kept was afternoon naps!! DS2 and DD had naps through most of what would have been their reception year.

Letterland is great for teaching littlies their letters etc.

Yes I agree about the naps. The eldest 2 dropped them before they were 2 and that made things hard.

Ds2 is still encouraged to go for a little lie down most afternoons hehehe and that makes things easier.

We like SOTW too, good fun
I'll check out Galore Park, thanks.

They got a pc for Christmas and we're getting back in the swing of things today. So far the new pc is working out well. They're alternating between table and pooter.
Fingers crossed x

I'm a Jolly Phonics gal .....right i've been rumbled I need to get back to them

(HE certainly plays havoc with my MN'ing that's for certain)

Hi Sorky, a fellow-gibberer here; I HE four children, tho mine are even closer together in age than yours - 2 dds aged 7 and 5, and 2 dss aged 3 and 1. I've been looking over your shoulder for hints, too, as it seems an impossible task at times, and my DH often asks why I don't give myself a break and send the older two to school... But I'm determined to struggle on .

We are, at the moment, autonomous by default rather than by design, as I somehow find it impossible to regularly find even an hour a day to 'do' something with them, without monster 3 yo or baby 'intervening'. They're learning loads in spite of a marked lack of teaching, which is heartening. I did read The Well-Trained Mind, and wept in envy of the education I never had, and would love to give my kids...on another planet somewhere...in a parallel reality...

I'll be looking over your shoulder at any hints, but meanwhile... [whispers] is your house tidy? What does a normal day look like? Inspire me to carry on the good fight!

I don't home educate (although have definitely considered it) but have just googled The Well Trained Mind and am impressed. DS has a few problems in school (sensory processing delay and social communication disorder) so I do alot of stuff with him at home to make up for what he misses in school due to his difficulties. The school have actually been fabulous and given him above and beyond what other schools do for some children with SEN.
Will get a copy of this book though as anything which helps DS would be good and I loved the chapter I read on teaching pre-schoolers to read. We have literally had to go back to basics with DS and reading - its a slow process but he is getting there.

Anyeway - thread hijack over - thanks for the tips I have picked up here though.

Jolly Pirate, the Well Trained Mind is the complete opposite to NC, (which is probably why I like it so much!) I think that because small children are expected to do so much at once, figure out spaces between words, capitals, punctuation, spelling, sentence structure and think of something to actually write, that it overloads so many children. They seem to value the creative writing (which my DS1 just couldn't grasp - still hates it!) above everything else.

WTM on the other hand works with copywork, then dictation and narration. So if they want to 'tell a story', they tell it to you, you write it down and they copy it, so that they have a 'perfect' copy in front of them. You also help tweak their sentences as they say them by saying it back to them correctly. Having said that, they steer clear of creative writing until they are older, and I think story-telling when they are little is better done orally, anyway.

What I notice at secondary school is that accuracy in literacy is going down and I believe it's because it simply isn't valued. And then they apply for jobs, which they don't get because they can't write coherently and accurately. (And spell checkers don't correct everything!!)

i am soon to be in the same boat with our dc4 due in the summer!

i agree with wtm but have also found workboxes really help, as i load them the night before, this really helped with organisation, and helps me to keep on track!

I HE 5 aged 12,10,5,4 and 3. It's fun and busy and I wouldn't have it any other way
It's a great idea to organise into do alone and do with help, but I have found over the years that if they have learnt the basics and go in order and are interested in what they are doing (ie want to do it) then they usually can naturally progress.